BMI as Health Gauge Flawed

OCTOBER 01, 2006

Susan Farley

Body mass index (BMI), the standard
measure of obesity, has been deemed
badly flawed, say US physicians following
results of a data analysis recently published
in The Lancet. Researchers from
the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in
Minnesota have found that patients with
higher BMIconsidered overweighthad better survival rates than patients
with low or normal BMI. Their study data
came from 40 studies covering 250,000
people with heart disease. Lead researcher
Francisco Lopez-Jiminez is
quick to point out that their study results
do not suggest that overweight people
are healthier, but rather, the BMI as a
measurement is no longer effective. "Our
data suggest that alternative methods
might be needed to better characterize
individuals who truly have excess body
fat, compared with those in whom BMI is
raised because of preserved muscle
mass." A separate study involving 52
countries compared 4 different body
measures: BMI, waist-to-hip ratio, waist
measure, and hip measure. Results
showed waist-to-hip ratio to be the
surest predictor of heart attack risk."